Home Truths Research Articles

Book Review of Home Truths aims to shake up the Canadian housing system

Book Review of Home Truths aims to shake up the Canadian housing system

A Pragmatist Interpretation and Defense of Entity Realism

This paper offers a pragmatist interpretation of Ian Hacking’s version of entity realism, and shows that such an interpretation enables the view to withstand a number of objections. Specifically, the paper shows Hacking’s rejection of a representationalist epistemology, which realist critics unjustifiably attribute to him, and shows his endorsement of a Deweyan pragmatist epistemology instead. If the interpretation is correct, the objections (a) that entity manipulation is theory-laden, (b) that the concept of home truths cannot do the work Hacking envisioned, (c) that entity realism is a form of inference to the best explanation (IBE), (d) that some real entities aren’t manipulable, and (e) that some non-real entities are manipulable, lose much of their force. Objections (a), (b), and (c) rest on a metaepistemological misunderstanding, while objections (d) and (e) are addressed with (pragmatist) clarifications. This paper also offers a novel pragmatist argument for entity realism: the argument from technology. The argument from technology maintains that the reality of the entities that constitute our technologies is a precondition for those technologies’ meaningful use. In this case, entity realism remains a more viable perspective on science than is commonly acknowledged.

French Myths and French Realities: Some Bitter Home Truths

French Myths and French Realities: Some Bitter Home Truths

Gendered Orientations around Domestic Objects; A Study of Home Truths: Gender, Domestic Objects and Everyday Life

When Daniel Miller asked ‘Why some things matter?’, it became critical to question why they matter differently for various genders. This paper is an attempt to analyze how ‘orientations’ around objects play out differently for the female gender in Sarah Pink’s (2004) Home Truths: Gender, Domestic and Everyday Life. The domestic space of research informants in England and Spain is taken up to explore not only how orientations are different for the female genders, but how they also go on to reinforce gender roles. Thus works of foundational thing theorists like Bill Brown, Bruno Latour and Daniel Miller’s ideas of subject-object relations are critiqued and revealed to be inadequate until gender is factored in. Additionally, the paper also reveals how bodies then purposely attempt to break out of gender roles by molding their subject-object relations. Ultimately, things end up shaping our mind more than we can fathom.

Home Truths: Irish Neoliberalism’s Eclipse of Irish Catholicism

Home Truths: Irish Neoliberalism’s Eclipse of Irish Catholicism Kevin Hargaden (bio) At one stage in Derek Scally’s brilliant journalistic account of the collapse of the influence of the Irish Catholic Church, he compares the institution to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Thinking about the Irish Catholic Church as a ‘leaning tower of piety’ is an interesting image, because it is widely understood today that the famous white marble bell tower does not simply have a precipitous tilt because of faulty foundations. That was the initial problem, identified about five years after construction. Soon after that, Genoa and Pisa went to war, and it was the better part of a century before building resumed. Modifications were made that did not sufficiently address the fundamental problem. Even though the edifice was completed in 1370, it was already sliding back off its axis. One of the strengths of Scally’s book is how it introduces the figure of Cardinal Paul Cullen to his readers. While many in Ireland have an understanding of Irish history stalked by a caricature called John Charles McQuaid, Cullen was a much earlier and perhaps more significant ecclesial revolutionary leader. Scally resists the temptation to cast him as a villain and instead locates him in context as a skilled organiser, formed in Rome, who perceived how to advance the institutional reform of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the Famine and Catholic Emancipation. Scally is clear that this reform was not purely ultramontane, meaning aligned and subservient to the interests of Rome, but also a hybrid with Victorian social mores. At the heart of this project was a devotional revolution that brought about the ‘Irish Catholicism’ that sometimes seems somewhat more ‘Irish’ than ‘Catholic’. It expressed itself in the development of schools, hospitals, parish buildings, and growing seminaries. It also aimed at the social advancement of Catholics in Irish society. Desmond Bowen reports that less than ten years after his appointment, Cullen’s office could boast that ‘everywhere now Catholics were advancing socially, on the bench, in commerce, in railways, even among the landed gentry and nobility’. [End Page 225] If the foundations for Cullen’s Church reform went awry, it may well be here: in its pursuit of social and political influence through economic attainment. Unlike the tower in Pisa, Catholicism has collapsed, and in its wreckage thousands of lives have been ruined. If economic attainment and societal legitimation were part of the shifting sand that set the institution to fall, then excavating those foundations is a central part of understanding how the collapse happened and how ‘they are still palpable now’. Scally’s account is more comprehensive than any 300-page first-person investigation has any right to be, but a notable absence from his analysis is how the Irish economic ‘miracle’ took off in parallel with the decline in the Irish Catholic Church’s fortunes. In this essay, I will put Scally’s book into dialogue with Melinda Cooper’s Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism with a view to understanding how the economic factors that can be identified in malignant Irish Catholicism have not been exorcised but intensified in the new era’s moral imagination. Tracing the family tree: the story Scally tells The Best Catholics in the World is an attempt to provoke an engagement in Irish society with a version of Vergangenheitsbewältigung (the process of coming to terms with the past, modelled particularly on German efforts to remember rightly the Nazi regime, war, and holocaust). It is a story told in three parts. First, he seeks to unearth why it is that Irish people came to believe themselves to be so very Roman Catholic. These chapters are full of useful demythologisation. He tries to draw a line under the bogus self-flattery that often gets hidden behind discussion of ‘Celtic Christianity’. Whatever else it was, it was neither imposed on the Celts through force nor wildly divergent from what prevailed elsewhere. He very neatly explains how the Penal Laws – which in some cases were statutes passed in parliament without much real-world impact – were retroactively woven into the nationalistic narrative that emerged in the nineteenth century...

A change would do you good: advances in research impact in sustainable tourism and some ‘home truths’ for the sector

There is a growing impetus on academics working in higher education to evidence the wider impact (i.e. the social and economic benefits) of their research. As academic disciplines, tourism in general, and sustainable tourism more specifically, evolved to understand and address the real-world challenges and opportunities facing the sector. It is thus worrying that there are indications of a growing divide between researchers and beneficiaries. This editorial introduces a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Tourism dedicated to showcasing examples of sustainable tourism research that are bucking the trend by clearly evidencing the applied value of research and the routes to creating change. First, we outline the footings of the ‘impact agenda’ within academia and examine the distinction between the impact in its academic and wider forms. With the focus on wider impact, we then consider its provenance within the field of sustainable tourism before outlining the themes underpinning the eight articles comprising this special issue. We end by considering the changes that are required within the academic environment and to the psyche and approach of tourism scholars in order to enhance the likelihood of wider impact being generated from the outcomes of scholarly activity within the field.

An Introduction to Reading the Past Critically

An Introduction to Reading the Past Critically

Home Truths: Property TV, Financialization, and the Housing Crisis in Contemporary Ireland

This article examines how a specific form of lifestyle programming indexes both national concerns and transnational financial trends as well as diffuse social fissures in Irish life. Emerging in the late 1990s amid a construction boom, Irish property television adapted and thrived through the subsequent post-2008 crash, the concomitant implementation of austerity policies and an ensuing housing crisis. This boom-to-bust cycle was precipitated by the financialization of property within Ireland, a process whereby housing and commercial property became embedded in transnational financial market cycles. Through an analysis of three key examples of the genre, this article argues that for the most part, Irish property television seeks to hold at bay anxieties generated by a growing wealth and income disparity in the state. While this programming displays an ideological commitment to the “investor subjects” of home-ownership, increasingly the concerns of those excluded from this version of the good life are evident.

Home Truths and Uncomfortable Spaces: Swiss Hotels and Literature of the 1920s

Abstract Switzerland was at the centre of the European grand hotel scene, geographically and discursively. This article considers Swiss hotel literature and life in the 1920s, a decade in which the country’s hotel landscape became politicized and, relatedly, was often portrayed in popular literature. Against the backdrop of more canonical and intellectual hotel literature set in Switzerland, the following reads Meinrad Inglin’s Grand Hotel Excelsior (1928) as a response to a contemporary ‘culture war’, and as an attempt at centrist cultural criticism. Drawing especially on magazine and other archival evidence, this article also uncovers the promotion, sponsorship and discussion of hotel literature by Swiss hotel lobbyists, which was concerned with increasing the commercial viability of hotels after the First World War, and improving their image at a time of polarized debates about the direction of Swiss society. Thus Inglin’s novel occupies a centre ground not only in its argument, but in a formal sense as well. Grand Hotel Excelsior is a literary means of mediating the problems of Swiss culture in the 1920s, manifest in hotels as actual spaces or subjects, rather than a novel written for, or adaptable to, vested interests, or a work that employs – in the vein of Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse – the hotel as a material setting to explore abstract ideas.

Fake News and Home Truths, Its Effects on the Contemporary Political Narratives: An Appraisal of India and Nigeria

Fake News and Home Truths, Its Effects on the Contemporary Political Narratives: An Appraisal of India and Nigeria

All My Sons

The Dewsbury Arts Group is a leading nonprofessional theater company in the North of England, operating from a former Friends meeting house with wonderful hardworking facilities that culminate in a gem of an auditorium. The group has a history with Miller, having already produced The Crucible and A View From the Bridge some time ago. The director, Sue Saville, said that they were ready to inject some “meat” into this year's program, and she knew that Arthur Miller was the playwright to which to turn.Sue Daniels and her team are to be congratulated for their realistic set design. They created a perfect replica, following Miller's directions, of a clapboard house and veranda, and with the “back lot” nicely enclosed, as the playwright would have wished. Andy Wright's “rose-tinted” lighting helps emphasize the apparent cozy image of the Keller family. The play opens with the sound of a tremendous thunderstorm, overlaid by Tony Fox's truly authentic sound of aircraft. Saville stated that the storm in her mind was the epitome of the storm that will soon break in the household and links to the damaged tree in more ways than one.Richard Brook as Joe Keller is outstanding throughout, beginning with an easy “Sunday morning” style that was to reveal his understanding of the rhythms in the play. His laconic ease at play with Leon Smithson's lively Bert seemed already undercut with a lurking insecurity. Together with the brilliant Maria Bailey as Kate Keller, the couple form a spine to this performance that never wilted in pace or lacked energy or intensity. They formed a backdrop against which the idiosyncrasies of the other characters could be contrasted.Mark Bailey is superbly wistful as Doc Bayliss; one fully can understand his broken dreams when he is constantly driven by the monetary demands of his wife Sue, safe in the hands of Lisa Dickinson. The measure of Dickinson's role, as always, is in the crucial exchange with Ann. She delivers her salutary message with just the right amount of bile and venom to make her return to friendly neighbor plausible. You simply want to give Frank Lubey (lovely Tony Fox) a good shake. Like Doc Bayliss, he is another dreamer, highlighting Miller's understanding of the frustration of returning soldiers from combat. They find evidently blinkered people like Frank and the Doc hard to read. The readjustment to a materialistic world from that special comradeship of battle is confusing, leading to frustration and anger. Iain Winstanley's Chris Keller is confused about his future in the family business, and guilty about surviving the war. He is superb in his early hesitant exchanges with Ann (Rachel Wood). Wood's Ann, however, has the steel to withstand the haranguing by Sue Bayliss, the outright wiles of Kate, the sibling tugging of brother George, and it is only right that she should deliver the final moment of truth.Mathew Bailey's George Deever is angry, having learned the truth about his father; he is also filled with remorse about how he neglected him. Madhia Ansari-Kahn's delightful cameo of the girlfriend left behind, now with three of Frank Lubey's children, is a harsh reminder to George of how life appears unreal after his war experiences. Again, Miller exerts his rhythm, as Kate somehow finds a balm for George's bitterness, and Mathew Bailey's change of heart is totally convincing, as his anger subsides with want for his boyhood years even while the knowledge of his father's innocence persists.In this production acts 2 and 3 were merged, allowing the final mixture of admissions and home truths to flood without pause. Chris and Joe are at each other's throats, Kate is descending into the fringes of insanity, and even gentle Doc Bayliss admits he “knew.” The telltale gunshot leads to the complete collapse of Chris into his mother's arms as she now begins the reparation of her surviving son. There is again a roar of piston-engined aircraft flying past, their cracked cylinder heads hinting at all the human fissures below.This performance was faithful to Miller in very sense, and there were no artificial devices laid over his script. The cast appeared to fully understand and convey the issues of denial, guilt, and greed that the playwright wanted to explore. They also each maintained their accents without falter, and this is no mean feat if one knows the distinctive tones of West Yorkshire. The cast was allowed one modest curtain call; in New York or London they indeed would have received a standing ovation.

PAREMIOLOGICAL UNITS OF METONIMIC NATURE IN ENGLISH, RUSSIAN AND TATAR LANGUAGES

Every language has its own sets of proverbs, owing their origin to literary works or religious books. Proverbs from different languages are popular and used many times by all people. Many authors and the story-tellers use the provers quite often to emphasis their points and perceptions. The political orators as well as the religious preachers use the proverbs from their respective religions to make their points strong and convincing. Proverbs are words of wisdom or simple home truths expressed in a sentence often metaphoric or metonymic in nature. Proverbs and sayings of metonymic nature are the least studied part of the modern paremiological foundation. The relevance of this work is bound to the growing interest to Oriental and European languages and intercultural communication, because paremiological units contain specific knowledge about the people speaking the language, their culture, history, etc.

THE RULE OF LAW AND ACCESS TO JUSTICE: SOME HOME TRUTHS

MISAPPREHENSIONS about the UK's constitution are ten-a-penny. Most prominent among them, perhaps, are the notions that the UK “has no constitution” and that fundamental rights cannot meaningfully exist without an “entrenched” or “written constitution”. To that list of misunderstandings can now be added the ideas – brought to light by the Supreme Court's judgment in R. (UNISON) v Lord Chancellor [2017] UKSC 51, [2017] 3 W.L.R. 409 – that the judicial system, far from being a non-negotiable feature of any constitutional democracy, is nothing more than a public service, and that access to it can be regulated by the executive accordingly. To describe UNISON as a welcome corrective to such misconceptions would be to engage in rash understatement. In a tour de force that ought to be compulsory reading for every Minister and parliamentarian, the Court elucidates the true value of independent courts and tribunals, illuminates the common law's potential as a guarantor of basic rights, and reiterates an axiomatic set of constitutional home truths.

Epistemic Closure, Home Truths, and Easy Philosophy

Epistemic Closure, Home Truths, and Easy Philosophy

Home truths

Home truths

KONSEP DUḤKHA DAN MOKṢA DALAM CHĀNDOGYA UPANIṢAD SEBAGAI PEDOMAN MENCAPAI KEBEBASAN

<p><em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em> is a holy scripture which also a part of <em>Veda Śruti</em>. Usually every <em>Upaniṣad </em>contains teaching about <em>Brahman, Ātman </em>and the Universe. <em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em> is a mean to realize that there is no difference between jivātman (self’s soul) and <em>Paramātman </em>(Source of the Soul). The main objective of this scripture is to do the inquiry deep into the last home truth which reaches a step when a person became rather wise and mature to disconnect him/ her from all karmas. <em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em> texts have been chosen to be examined in this research because this scripture explain clearly about the consept of <em>duḥkha</em> and <em>mokṣa</em>. The problems which will be investigated on this research are: 1. how is the concept of <em>duḥkha </em>and <em>mokṣa</em> in <em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em>? 2) How is the way to be apart from <em>duḥkha</em> to attain <em>mokṣa </em>based on <em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em>?</p><p>Related to the research question above, this research only use one theory to analyze it, which is the Gadamer’s Hermeneutic Theory. Hermeneutic theory is the scalpel on interpreting the meaning which consists on texts. This is a qualitative research, therefore, the collection of the data using the technique of literature and document studies.</p><p>The result of this research can be told as follows: 1) the concept of <em>duḥkha</em> in <em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em> is the bound state of the soul with the physical body materially. When the soul bounded with the senses materially, then it is causing billion of desires to come out. All bounds towards these desires will throw the soul into the depth of sorrow (<em>duḥkha</em>). The concept of <em>mokṣa</em> in <em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em> is a state when <em>ātman</em> reach <em>the abode of </em>God, <em>Brakmaloka</em> and would never came back to this material world. 2) The way to release from the bond of <em>duḥkha</em> based on <em>Chāndogya Upaniṣad</em> is through realize the essence which relies on every being, the <em>ātman</em> who gave life into the physical body, comprise of shaper elements of the body. This can be realized by the help of Spiritual Teacher who’s already acquainted <em>Brahman </em>itself.</p>

Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Editor). Duncan Liddel (1561–1613): Networks of Polymathy and the Northern European Renaissance. With Karin Friedrich. (Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions, 17.) xii + 322 pp., figs., bibl., index. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016. €135 (cloth).

Pietro Daniel Omodeo (Editor). <i>Duncan Liddel (1561–1613): Networks of Polymathy and the Northern European Renaissance</i>. With Karin Friedrich. (Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions, 17.) xii + 322 pp., figs., bibl., index. Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2016. €135 (cloth).

NORWIDOWSKIE POMNIKI LITERATURY

Norwidian Literary Monuments The article discusses functions of quoting pre-Romantic authors in Norwid’s literary and discursive texts. The author argues that Norwid treated Franciszek Karpiński, Piotr Skarga, and Ignacy Krasicki as commentators of the nineteenth-century world and consequently as ‘literary monuments’ who participated in forging the contemporary cultural reality. In Norwid’s works, these authors themselves, not only their texts, became sui generis manifestations and figures of the fate of an unanswered prophet, or an advocate of home truths; as such they became mythologised. One can also find in Norwid’s works, however, elements of the discussion with literary tradition, which proves that he actively engaged with some of the ‘monuments’ of literature (cf. the case of Łukasz Górnicki).

Long Story Short: The Writing Life of Sheila Roberts

In a publishing career within South Africa dating from the 1970s, over the next three decades, Sheila Roberts (1937–2009) consistently evaded oversimplified readings of her work, especially in the short-story form, and in her verse. For most of her later professional career as a teacher of “creative writing” in the United States, she defied literalisms, dispatching back to her country of birth challenging versions of “home truths” and increasingly using devious narratorial techniques, even in her novels, becoming a major innovator in the literature of the English-speaking subcontinent.

Home truths: Family violence in the Australian context

Home truths: Family violence in the Australian context